1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to mobile communication systems. In particular, the present invention relates to intelligent selection of access points to a network by a mobile device having a plurality of transceivers.
2. Background of the Invention
Mobile devices such as cellular telephones, PDAs, etc. are proliferating like never before. Almost everyone has some sort of mobile device, and some people have multiple devices. Users can access several different networks using a single mobile device, and can access voice, text, and multimedia data from other network entities such as servers and other mobile devices. Further, mobile device complexity is increasing, with more and more advanced and power-efficient processors, display interfaces, and applications to provide a user experience like never before. Such devices include, for instance, the iPhone, iPad, Droid, and other PDAs/netbooks. Consequently, users are using their mobile devices more frequently, and have larger bandwidth requirements for data, email, voice, etc.
This increased usage puts a tremendous strain on the network that provides these services. Even with the advent of 3G and 4G networks that use Internet Protocol (IP) addressing, Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), etc., there are certain network elements that get overwhelmed and create a bottleneck for data flow, such as cellular base stations (or Node Bs) and their associated gateways. Several users within the range of one or more base stations who are downloading high-volume data from the network will have greater transmission power requirements from the base station. This may cause reduced signal strength per mobile device, and consequently a lower quality connection. Transmission power control can alleviate some but not all of these issues. This further causes higher battery usage on the mobile device itself.
Network operators generally offer alternative means to connect to their core networks, or to the Internet. Femtocells, Fiber-to-the-node (FTTN), and wireless local area network (WLAN or Wi-Fi) access points can provide access to various networks for mobile devices having more than one type of transceiver. For instance, the iPhone includes a Wi-Fi transceiver. A Wi-Fi hotspot/access point can be used to connect to a network, with broadband speeds, and the load on the cellular network can be reduced. However, there are specific issues that prevent the efficient selection of an access point. For instance, many users appear to disable Wi-Fi due to either a) concerns over battery life, or b) to avoid the annoying messages to connect to Wi-Fi every time an open access point is detected. Consequently, users often don't enable Wi-Fi as they may forget to turn it off afterwards. Leaving it on leads to a faster battery drainage, and leaving it off leads to connectivity issues as well as sub-optimal power usage as the cellular transceiver may have to use more power for high-throughput communication with a base station. Constant user interaction with a connection manager to enable/disable the Wi-Fi transceiver does not provide for a seamless and streamlined user experience.
Consequently, what is needed is a means to intelligently determine if a mobile device is likely in the vicinity of an access point, and to determine if it is the optimal connection type based upon the circumstances at any given time and location.